Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
He held center stage through the 1850s; he had overshadowed them all—Silliman, Dana, Henry, Hall, Gray. The voice of Charles Darwin was still to be heard.
David McCullough • Brave Companions
À Zurich, en 1922, il évoque déjà les rapports intellectuels franco-allemands. Lui dont la réputation politique tient en bonne partie à son analyse précoce de l’expansion germanique fait bientôt figure de champion de la réconciliation, sympathisant avec Stefan Zweig, Thomas Mann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal (qui voit en lui l’essence du Français) et
... See moreBenoît Peeters • Paul Valéry
Like Humboldt before him, he took the greatest pride in the influence he had on the next generation of naturalists. And indeed the subsequent careers of his students and museum assistants are as strong a testament to his genius as almost anything else.
David McCullough • Brave Companions
Das Stumme und Unbewegliche zum Reden und zum Bewegen zu bringen, vielleicht ist das der Lehrer in ihm gewesen,
Joseph Zoderer • Die Walsche: Roman (HAYMON TASCHENBUCH) (German Edition)
Herder wrote that "A poet is the creator of the nation around him, he gives them a world to see and has their souls in his hand to lead them to that world." To him such poetry had its greatest purity and power in nations before they became civilised, as shown in the Old Testament, the Edda, and Homer, and he tried to find such virtues in ancient
... See moreJohann Gottfried Herder - Wikipedia
Nationalism made it easier to mobilize power and control large numbers of people. Nation-states formed by underlining and emphasizing characteristics that people held in common, particularly spoken language. This facilitated rule without the intervention of intermediaries. It simplified the tasks of bureaucracy. Edicts that need only be promulgated
... See moreJames Dale Davidson, Lord William Rees-Mogg • The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
It was because of Humboldt that I went on to read the stories of Delmore Schwartz, and fell in love with In Dreams Begin Responsibilities.
Ann Patchett • This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
... See moreThe aspect of Scott Buchanan’s life to which this memoir relates began, for me at least, with a college lecture he gave in October of 1944.
The lecture was a flight of high speculative fancy in which he tried to imagine the features of a Republic of Learning joined with a political republic.
If man is a political animal, his virtues compromised and